


T'lema (he who walks in dreams)

by yel_halansu



Series: Star Trek Bingo Summer 2020 [4]
Category: Star Trek
Genre: Dreams, M/M, Premonitions, Vulcan Bond, Vulcan Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-05 07:54:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25467337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yel_halansu/pseuds/yel_halansu
Summary: In spite of all the warnings from his father, young Spock allows a mysterious Terran boy to haunt his dreams, unaware of how much influence this will have over his life.
Relationships: James T. Kirk/Spock
Series: Star Trek Bingo Summer 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1844740
Comments: 9
Kudos: 63
Collections: Star Trek Bingo Summer 2020





	T'lema (he who walks in dreams)

It is often said that Vulcans do not dream. This is decidedly untrue.

Spock learned this at a young age. The first dream he could ever remember came when he was barely five years old: he had dreamed of playing in the sand with a friendly Terran boy. His father was quick to crush him with a single disapproving look when Spock told him excitedly the following morning. That had been a mistake. Vulcans do not discuss their dreams with others. There is power in dreams, just as there is power in emotion; and they are both best kept safe and contained, harnessed deep inside the Vulcan heart. Like a fire, explained Sarek, they can consume you entirely if you let them roam free.

The first few times the boy returned to his dreams, Spock tried to turn him away, but he would not leave. The boy had ignored him and hugged him so tight that all of his pushing and pulling was in vain. Spock soon decided that these dreams were something he was supposed to subdue, but that he would always remain incapable of suppressing entirely. The boy would smile at him with all the brightness of the Eridani sun and his fire would remain, smoldering away in his soul even after he woke.

With his first school year came cruel taunts from other pupils, and with them, the solace of his dreams became more crucial than ever. In his dreams he was loved and treated with kindness, in his dreams the word “Terran” was not an insult but a treasure, whispered in admiration whenever the golden-haired boy appeared. He had told him his name several times, but Spock could never quite remember it when he woke. He would always think about him as hard as he could when he laid down on his firm bed at night, hoping with all his might that he would see his gleaming warm eyes again.

He made the next mistake when he told his meditation teacher about his dreams when he was eleven years old. His father was called in, and even though they were whispering, Spock could hear them talk through the wooden door of the meditation room at the sanctuary. That was when he first heard that word. T'lema. An unusual word, even for someone who could speak flawless Vulcan. An ancient word, which means “he who walks in dreams”.

His father had left the room fuming and grabbed him by the arm without even a second glance as he stormed off home, but would not reprimand Spock or tell him what he had done wrong this time. After a few days, the Terran boy was in his mind again as he knelt facing the priestess at the temple, his eyes closed as he tried to bring him to the forefront of his thoughts. Her fingers felt cold as they pressed intensely into the psi points on his face. When they were finished, the priestess had a word in private with his father too. T'lema. There was no doubt about it.

Another meeting came, now with the parents of his bondmate, T'Pring. The adults all locked themselves in the salon with their tea sets and their stern expressions, and neither Spock nor T'Pring managed to hear what was happening this time, even though they had both pressed their little pointed ears to the door as hard as they could. T'Pring's parents had opened the door so suddenly that it had knocked them both back. They whisked the girl away with an aura of outrage blazing behind the mask of their calm demeanor. She never came back to his house to play after that day.

But the Terran boy kept coming back to him again and again at night, as if he was summoned by the word that Spock now knew for him, T'lema. As Spock turned from a child into a youth, T'lema grew with him, becoming taller and more muscular and more intriguing in a myriad of yearning ways as desire started to bloom inside the Vulcan.

He was in his mind as the years passed swiftly. Some nights he accompanied him in the profound darkness of deep slumber, and some nights he agitated him so that the sleeping Vulcan would turn around restlessly in his bed. His memory soothed him during painful days, surfaced whenever he found himself in awe looking at the distant stars from his window, distracted him from his meditation exercises.

T'lema was a premonition. Perhaps he was a call he had to answer, a destiny to be fulfilled. He had believed so for years; but perhaps it was just a fantasy after all, he started to think over time as he grew older. His dreams were becoming more infrequent and distant as his mastery over his own emotions grew with training and experience, and T'lema faded away quietly, his visits rarer, his appearance cloudier and more obscure.

With the responsibilities of adulthood came his choice to join Starfleet, a last-ditch effort to escape from the pain of his past and of his nature towards a glistening future. And one day, as he was striding to his lecture hall at Starfleet Academy, he collided with someone with so much force he fell to the floor. Instinctively, he took the hand that was offered to help him up. And when they touched for the first time, he looked up into the face of this stranger, he realized that T'lema was right in front of him, shining in the sun once more like a long-forgotten dream.


End file.
